


Binary Ticks

by Rasalahuge



Category: Awaken the Stars Series - Jer Keene
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Badass Eric, Blackmail, Canon Disabled Character, Coercion, Double dosing, ETKC-51, Eric & Computers, Eric gets caught, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Psychic Eric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 04:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14845721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rasalahuge/pseuds/Rasalahuge
Summary: He managed five years on the run. Five years of being a ghost, of silent dreams and grainy pictures of those he loves taken from CCTV cameras. He was so close. So fucking close to safety.In 2012, just weeks from safety, the Department catches up to Eric Som. Things go about as well as can be expected, after that.





	Binary Ticks

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so posting a fanfic you're reasonably certain the actual author will see at some point? Surprisingly nerve-wracking. Ah, well. Time to stop being a long time lurker and actually post something that shows my endless appreciation for all things flamethrower/Jer Keene. Also Ashlesha is amazing.
> 
> Minor liberties taken with ETKC-51 and double-dosing which will become obvious, but hopefully not lore-breaking ones.

He managed five years on the run. Five years of being a ghost, of silent dreams and grainy pictures of those he loves taken from CCTV cameras. Five years of stupid hats and legs that don’t fit and days at a time with nothing but caffeine pills keeping him going.

He was so close. So fucking close to safety.

He was exhausted, traumatised and well overdue a mental breakdown over just about everything. Frankly it was a miracle that he didn’t make a mistake sooner. All it took was one mistimed break and one person with a camera phone catching him in the background without either his hat or sunglasses and suddenly the few steps he’d managed to scrape ahead of his pursuers vanished into thin air. The downside of facial scars and only one functioning eye? They are fucking distinctive.

In March of 2012 the supposedly deceased Eric Som was spotted by members of a certain department on a photograph of a crowd in the outskirts of Hanoi. Within 24 hours he was cornered and no matter that he was one half of the most dangerous Rangers partnership in recent history and could shoot as well with his left hand as he used to be able to with his right, he was screwed. He couldn’t run on his latest stupid prosthetic, he had a glaring blind spot from his literally blind eye and just because he _could_ shoot with his left hand, it did not make him able to magically produce ammunition. He could drop twelve agents with twelve bullets, but that did nothing against the other ten, or the Specialist sent to round him up.

Eric went back to the States screaming and fighting all the damn way. He made four escape attempts, one of which was almost successful until another damn Specialist appeared out of fucking _nowhere_. He kept fighting until he found himself in a locked room in what he suspected was DC, or the outskirts of it at least. Every part of the cell (definitely cell, not room) he had been put in screamed military detention centre but Eric wasn’t stupid; if this particular detention centre was on any official record he would eat his latest stupid prosthetic. Well, if he still had his latest stupid prosthetic and they hadn’t confiscated it after escape attempt number three.

Stroud (apologies _Director_ Stroud) was just as much of a slimy asshole as he was five years ago. Actually, Eric considered as he pointedly didn’t listen to the man’s recruitment speech, he was even slimier. The one thing Eric couldn’t figure out was why he was bothering with a recruitment speech. He’d been chasing Eric for five years across an entire fucking continent and had him locked in a tiny concrete room with bars on the window. Eric knew exactly how screwed he was in that moment.

Stroud then presented a picture to him. It was a little girl, best guess four or five but Eric couldn’t be certain, blonde, cute and so damn familiar… he couldn’t place her though. He _could_ place the man who was carrying her and who was quite obviously the little girl’s father. Brian. His brother. His _niece_. He didn’t know he had a niece. He laid a bet with himself as to who the little girl’s mother was and wished Ella was there to join in with his stupid bets. The message was pretty clear.

Stop trying to escape or you get replaced by a four year old.

Eric hadn’t tried to contact his family before because of the risk it presented them and they were all adults (mostly, Kai would be by now but he hadn’t been when Eric ‘died’) fully capable of waging a war if necessary. If Eric gave Stroud anything, it was this, the bastard was fucking smart. This niece of Eric’s, and fuck he doesn’t even know her name, was not capable of fighting a war. No matter how competent Eric’s family were, he knew damn well it was still too damn easy to make pretty little girls disappear if you paid the right people.

Eric went to the research lab without fighting. He watched with a certain degree of detached fascination as the IV was connected to him. ETKC-51. He knew the name a long time ago, sworn to silence by his father who had been skirting the edge of NDAs by telling them that one name. What his father hadn’t mentioned, what Eric didn’t know when he caved to Stroud’s blackmail, was what double-dosing meant or why Stroud was so fascinated by it.

Eric wouldn’t learn for years (and by that stage he’d long since run out of fucks to give anyway) but he was the first test subject to be dosed twice with ETKC-51 and survive.

He wasn’t sane, after. He wasn’t stable, really. He was, however, controllable. He wasn’t a danger to everyone and everything around him, including himself. No one knew why. The lab scientists could only speculate that because his first dose was inherited and not direct he had some degree of protection against the changes a second dose of ETKC-51 made. They already knew a period of adjustment was necessary. Well Eric had nearly thirty years of adjustment to the first dose; he’d literally grown up with it. Stroud didn’t care about why, he just cared that it was repeatable.

He only suggested going after more of Eric’s siblings to repeat the test once. He learned fucking _fast_ that for Eric ‘controllable’ had limits.

If Stroud made any attempts to find more offspring of department members then Eric never learned about it. If he had, Eric wasn’t sure he would have cared. His family was safe. After the second dose, Eric found it really hard to care about anything else.

Double-dosing drove people insane. Just because Eric had lucked out in surviving, it did not make that any less true.

The first six months Eric spent solely under the hands of the scientists, trying to figure out how he worked and how to replicate the results. He was given new state-of-the-arc prosthetics, leg and fingers, and put through physical therapy to help him get used to them. They didn’t bother with any other kinds of therapy; anyone who met his one working eye could see that inside Eric was straight up broken. He spoke when he needed to, followed the orders of the scientists, and stared into space when his attention wasn’t needed. He started to tap his new fingers against any solid surface within reach, a constant tick-tick sound that to most ears was utterly meaningless. To all outward appearance, Eric just switched off to reality.

Inside was a different matter.

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01000101010011000100110001000001

ELLA

The first six months with the scientists Eric lived in his head. Memory and reality jumbled until he couldn’t really remember if he was home or in a nightmare or if he even had all his siblings straight in his head. Had he always had fingers that tick-ticked when he tapped a table? Surely the world wasn’t supposed to be half in perfectly clear colour and half in blurry shades of grey? Something told him he wasn’t supposed to be in a lab, that he was supposed to be training horses with a woman who looked a lot like him. He wasn’t sure though and as more time passed he became less and less sure that what came before the labs wasn’t a vivid dream. He knew he had lucid dreams, or he thought he knew. What was the dream again? Was it the cold, sterile lab or the warm, happy farmhouse filled with laughter? What if neither of those were real and instead the dark, nightmarish place full of heat and black flames and shouts and gunshots was really where he was?

Confusion reigned and beyond that the constant tick-tick.

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01000101010011000100110001000001

ELLA

A call for her. His twin. The one thing in his head that made sense. He didn’t always remember what she looked like, what she sounded like. Sometimes he recognised the woman with the horses as her, sometimes the only thing that came to mind was a tiny dark-haired girl with an innocent smile and mischievous eyes. He never entirely lost her, though. His twin.

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01000101010011000100110001000001

ELLA

Six months down the line and the scientists had everything from Eric that they were going to be able to get and he was as stable as he possibly could be. Stroud came back and took Eric and tried to find a use for him. Fieldwork was… a complicated prospect. Between the insanity requiring a constant babysitter and his physical limitations, a lot of the work Stroud would have preferred him for was not really feasible. Unfortunately for Eric, while Stroud wasn’t willing to risk sending him to fight ground wars in far flung countries, there were plenty of things to be done closer to home. Eric became something like part-muscle, part-lie-detector and part outright psychic. Any time Stroud had a meeting with someone who was not lining up to the director’s vision Eric was usually there.

Whatever skills ETKC-51 had given the Specialists… Eric took it to another level. No one could lie to Eric, no one could keep secrets in his presence and he didn’t need to be physically capable to make you regret fucking with him. Eric was pretty certain he’d killed people who didn’t deserve it, especially early on when Stroud was still figuring out how to use him most effectively. It was just so confusing though, working out what was real and what wasn’t. Working out who was good and trustworthy and who deserved to have every terrible thing they’d experienced brought back to the forefront of his mind.

There was something there. Some rule that the man with a terrifying but reassuring smile had given Eric a long time ago. Something about kindness and deserving. He thought maybe the man was his Dad, but it could have been his brother too. The wolf had that same smile. Maybe. Eric was confused.

There was another thing, too. A book, or a movie, or something. Something about souls and magic and creepy, dead wraiths that made everything terrible. Maybe that was what Eric was.

“Wraith,”

“What was that?” Stroud narrowed his eyes in Eric’s direction. Eric didn’t really speak without being addressed anymore, it was too complicated and people started expecting things from him that made sense when nothing made sense.

“I’m a wraith,” he said, not really knowing how to explain his brain and not really sure he wanted to. Still there was something funny about being a wraith, something he thought maybe his siblings would laugh about. Assuming his siblings were real, that was, and he hadn’t imagined them.

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ELLA

Stroud didn’t seem to find the wraith thing as funny as Eric, but he did get a thoughtful look. Eric wasn’t surprised when everyone started to call him ‘Wraith’. He didn’t know _why_ he wasn’t surprised, but then what Eric didn’t know these days could probably fill an entire book.

That wasn’t the point, though. Eric wasn’t sure what the point _was_ , or even if there was one. He didn’t know why he clung on so tightly to the little fragments of sense in a world that stopped working the way he felt it should do. Maybe because if he didn’t cling on then he’d be lost. Working for Stroud, being somewhere that wasn’t the cold, sterile labs with their reassuring familiarity and stability, didn’t help him in any way. Eric discovered, belatedly, that he liked organisation and structure and he didn’t like the world unless it was that warm, safe farmhouse that might be a dream. The more Stroud used him, the more overwhelmed Eric became. It was stressful and he hated it. The tick-tick was a constant presence. A focus point when the world was too bright, too noisy, too confusing. 

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01000101010011000100110001000001

ELLA

Stroud only tried to stop him from tick-ticking once. It earned him a reaction that was on par with the one where he’d wanted to go after Eric’s siblings, back before Eric started to question whether he actually had them or if he’d imagined them. Without the steady tick-tick the world was too much. Eric sent everyone, Stroud included, to the floor in utter pants-wetting terror as his panic attack spilled out onto all those around him. He hadn’t come back to himself (for a given value of self) until Stroud had started tick-ticking. Eric had gone from panic-stricken to furious.

No.

No.

She was _his_. _His_ twin. _His_ anchor. 

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ELLA

That day, unsurprisingly, had only gotten worse for Stroud after that.

Suffice to say, Stroud learned to live with Eric’s constant tick-tick. He even seemed to learn a few other pertinent facts about people who saw the world differently. Eric didn’t think he counted as autistic, but was pretty sure his opinion mattered not at all. He didn’t object to the sudden structure to his day, or the noise-cancelling headphones. It didn’t really help shut up everything he could hear whether he liked it or not, but it was a little muffling and Stroud relented and bought him green ones. Eric didn’t know why he wanted green ones except he dreamt about a girl with blonde hair demanding to be allowed to dye her hair green. She seemed nice and Eric liked green.

The one thing that Eric did understand, with a crystal clear clarity, was why Stroud kept him despite the problems he presented. He was useful, incredibly so. Until Stroud could get someone with Eric’s ability without sacrificing their ability to function, then he wasn’t really replaceable.

That he would immediately _become_ replaceable if Stroud ever managed to keep a double-dosed Specialist sane went without saying.

The thought didn’t really bother Eric. There wasn’t space in his head to worry about things like that. Between the world’s thoughts crashing through his head at any given moment, and being unable to tell dream from reality, he had more than enough to worry about thank you. When everything became too much, Eric hid in the corner of the room, headphones on and tapped against the wall with two plastic fingers. Tick-tick.

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ELLA

It took a while before Stroud started to use Eric more widely. Eric was never certain whether it was a year or two years or even if it mattered, but eventually he started to be involved in more of the day-to-day events in the department. He wasn’t kept a secret anymore. Suddenly, there were people other than Stroud and the scientists. Most of them couldn’t so much as meet his gaze. Some did and Stroud liked it when Eric told him about things they thought. A part of Eric that was still a Ranger, buried deep down under the insanity, told him that he was helping Stroud weed out the ones that would follow him willingly from those that would have to be coerced, like Eric himself. A few, Eric knew, would be killed for being too much trouble.

Most of the people Eric met he didn’t like. They felt slimy, in their heads, slimy like Stroud did. He didn’t really understand why that was bad, but some part of his gut hated it.

Some people, though, were awesome.

Like Helena. She wasn’t a Specialist. Technically she wasn’t even an agent, but her son was a Specialist and she was around often, usually picking up occasional shifts with the administrative staff. She couldn’t bake very well, but she baked speculaas for Eric anyway. She called him ‘sweetheart’ and ‘dear’ and tried to teach him Dutch and failed miserably.

More importantly, Helena let him use her computer.

Eric had always been good with computers. His five years on the run had made him _exceptional_ with computers. Now, he had a double-dose of ETKC-51 in his bloodstream and a nice woman who liked him too much to breathe a word of what he was doing. The world, for Eric, was confusing and overwhelming… until he could break it down into ones and zeros. He hadn’t even realised that was what he had been doing until he sat at a computer and went right down to its base code. The first thing he did, on talking to the computer, was find her. Find his twin. His anchor.

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ELLA

The picture the computer gave him was a picture he knew. A woman with an innocent smile and chaotic eyes and horses. This was real. This was Ella. The one who he called out for, constantly, the one who kept him… well not _sane_ but anchored.

Helena took the picture and printed it out for him. She laminated it, put it on a lanyard and Eric tucked it hidden away under the baggy hoody he wore when he was not forced to wear the terrible grey suits. He hated those grey suits. They were a nice calm neutral colour that didn’t hurt his eye, but they _itched_ and they restricted him. His hoody’s were better. They’re easier to hide in and they feel soft on his skin. They didn’t make the world make more sense, but they certainly didn’t make it worse like the suits did.

“I’m sure she misses you, too,” Helena said as Eric stared at the picture of his twin. How Helena knew, Eric didn’t understand, but she knew that Eric wasn’t here willingly. There was a shadow in Helena’s eyes as she spoke. Eric was used to not understanding but for once he wished he did. (One day he will find out Helena’s story and her son’s, he will be sad without knowing why he is sad).

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01000101010011000100110001000001

ELLA

It became easier after that. Whenever the real world became too much and the tick-tick of Ella wasn’t enough he would take out her picture until he calmed down. Then he would find a computer and sink into the binary and escape the constant struggle to work out what was real and what wasn’t. Eric wasn’t completely convinced that the computers were real, that the binary wasn’t just another form of his delusions, but it made him feel better so he kept doing it. After Helena he made sort-of friends with everyone in admin. Well, they seemed to smile at him a lot and a lot of them would call him ‘poor lad’ and let him play on their computers.

It wasn’t the fear that Eric got from most of the people he met through meetings with Stroud. It was even nice, sometimes.

Eventually, though, Stroud ran out of slimy Specialists and agents and decided to start on the less slimy ones. Ones Eric, if he was able to grasp what Stroud was doing properly, would know would not be so easily persuaded to Stroud’s way of doing things. It didn’t go exactly as Stroud wanted. The first and last one Eric met was called Anandi Banner (Andi Bannerjee her mind whispered, stubbornly). He liked her. Her mind felt like silk, or flower petals. It was nice and different from the sliminess of Stroud and his people. Throughout the meeting, a briefing for a mission Andi and her partner were going on, Eric edged closer and closer fascinated by that silk mind.

“ _Wraith,_ ” Stroud said once the meeting was over. Eric paused. He knew that voice, that was the ‘do as I say’ voice. Eric had long since forgotten why he obeyed Stroud, but he knew bad things would happen if he didn’t.

“Who is he, sir?” Andi asked looking like she wasn’t certain she was going to get a proper answer.

“The son of a friend of mine, from early in the programme. I promised to look after him when my friend died,” Stroud answered smoothly. “Don’t mind him, he’s harmless enough.”

Every word of that was a lie and Eric knows Andi knows it. Her mouth remained stubbornly shut, however. Whatever suspicions she had (and she had several, Eric _knows_ ), she won’t voice them and they don’t come close to the truth. Andi had never met someone who had been double-dosed and even if she had Eric was dissimilar enough to most of them that she wouldn’t put the truth together. Still, Stroud’s words were warning enough to both of them.

Don’t push.

“Come along Wraith,” Stroud said holding out his hand cajolingly, as if Eric were exactly what Stroud said he was. They leave Andi to her mission. Unlike every other meeting with Specialists Stroud did not ask Eric about Andi afterwards, he probably didn’t need to. That night, curled up in the cot in the room (cell his mind whispered to him) that Eric called his own, he pulled out his picture of Ella, fingers tick-ticking as always.

He liked Andi. He won’t see her again until everything goes to shit.

He didn’t know how he knew that. Eric never knew how he knew what he did.

The steady tick-tick echoed in the empty room (cell).

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ELLA

Stroud seemingly gave up on having Eric vet his Specialists after that. Eric didn’t meet any others. He didn’t visit the department as often either, instead Stroud took him into DC proper and into the Pentagon where Eric gave Pentagon security _fits_.

Most of them didn’t know about the department. They didn’t know what Eric could do with his mind and wouldn’t believe it if they were told. That did not meant they couldn’t feel it, deep in their guts, just how fucking dangerous Eric was. They tried their best to keep Stroud from bringing him, to keep him from getting a security clearance to sit in on meetings. They tried everything right up to the point where they’d be in serious trouble if anyone leaked their actions to the media. Disabled combat vet denied access to the Pentagon when his carer has to visit for a meeting? Certain people would have a field day. If Eric knew what Stroud was doing, then the fact that they _fail_ to keep Eric out would frighten him. As it was, Eric was distracted by everything Stroud had demanded he do while there. It was a longer list than usual and Eric struggled to keep it all straight in his head.

The pulsing, constant background noise from everyone else’s heads did not help matters. Everyone here was sharp. Dozens upon dozens of dangerous glittering knives and so _many_ secrets. Eric was fascinated in the worst way and keeping focused was harder than usual. It reminded him of something, something from before.

_Key members of Parliament… and you put them in a room with a Psychic._

Someone would be laughing right now, if they knew what Eric was doing. What Stroud had done. Ella… Yes Ella would laugh but so would other people. Eric thought he had other siblings, but sometimes they were nebulous like ghosts and only Ella ever stayed. There was one, Eric knew, who would appreciate that reference more than others, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember which. Still. All those secrets…

Stroud _had_ said Eric was supposed to get information he could use against certain people. He hadn’t said that Eric _wasn’t_ allowed to get more from other people if he liked. Hmm…

That part of Eric that was a Ranger, the part that was son to one of the most dangerous men alive, the part buried deep down where Ella lived… it crowed with victory at the small piece of rebellion. Stealing secrets from the minds of men and women in the government didn’t seem like much to Eric, but he knew, suddenly, that one day those secrets would be very important for Ella. For his family.

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01000101010011000100110001000001

ELLA

Time didn’t mean much to Eric. It was one more thing to keep track of and he was thoroughly sick of having to make sense of a world that just plain didn’t make sense. Not keeping track of time beyond his nice, soothing, schedule was one way of protesting how much he fucking _hated_ the goddamned world. So learning it was 2016 didn’t mean all that much to him. His days were the same, check-in with the scientists (who still couldn’t replicate him, much to Stroud’s disgust), spend a couple of hours in physical therapy before Stroud’s first meetings of the day. Then, depending on whether he was going to the Pentagon or the department, either spend the day digging up secrets or playing with the department’s computers and talking to Helena. Back to his room (cell) for supper and sleep. Or, if Eric was wrong and this was the dream and not reality, he’d wake up to the nice warm farmhouse or a dark desert filled with gunfire depending on whether it was a good day or not.

It was the department, that day, and even better Helena was in. She let Eric sit at her computer and play with binary while she told him in hushed, but pleased, tones that her son was not only getting married but he was going to be promoted from Junior Specialist. At twenty, she told Eric confidently, that was basically unheard of outside of the original twenty when they didn’t have ranks like junior and senior specialist.

“And even better, Euan seems to have finally settled down,” Helena said and Eric grunted. He didn’t know who Euan was. He was pretty certain Helena hadn’t mentioned him before but… he might be wrong about that. He was wrong about a lot of things. “Well he’s got a boyfriend at least. He seems happier than he has done in a long time,”

Eric didn’t quite understand why Helena insisted on sharing all her gossip with him. She didn’t do this with anyone else in the department, even the ones she called her friends. Mostly because people in the department knew better than to make a big deal about personal information that might later be used against them. He liked it, but it felt weird to be included in her family even though it wasn’t his family. He wanted to know why.

Apparently he wanted to know badly enough that he actually asked. That was odd. Eric didn’t speak without being asked a question very often.

Helena smiled.

“You don’t have to be related to me to be family,” she told him firmly. “You need someone to mother you anyway,”

No he didn’t. Eric had a mother, thank you very much… didn’t he? He hesitated because two very different women appeared in his memories and he didn’t know… mothers weren’t something he thought of very often. Something about them made him sad, but he couldn’t remember why. His siblings, he thought about them a lot, Ella especially. His Dad, sometimes. He was easy, except when he tried to pretend he was a wolf too, then Eric just got frustrated. Why didn’t he think about his mother? He must have one, right? He didn’t think she was dead, but it hurt like she was dead anyway?

He didn’t notice he was getting stressed and upset until he felt someone hug him tightly.

“It’s okay Wraith, its okay sweetheart,” Helena murmured soothingly in his mind. “She’ll understand. She’ll know it’s not your fault you get confused. Take it from a Mam, dear, she’ll just want you to be safe and happy, even if you don’t ever remember.” Helena hugged him, not just physically but in his head too, and it was nice. Eric couldn’t remember the last time someone hugged him. She smelled like speculaas. She was right, though. Mom wouldn’t mind that Eric got confused. Moum wouldn’t either, he didn’t think. Why did Eric have two mothers? Not important, too confusing.

Eventually he calmed down enough that Helena could let go and do some more work. Eric noticed without really noticing that a lot of the grey-suit-wearing regular agents had gone for their weapons when he started to get upset. Everyone knew about Eric, except no one knew about Eric. They knew he was dangerous, they knew he could do terrible things with his brain, but so can most Specialists they’re just less obviously unstable than he is. They didn’t know that what Eric could do was well beyond what most Specialists even attempt. If Stroud ever figured out how to double-dose on a large scale without running out of agents very quickly then they might learn.

Eric felt his stomach drop and his heart start racing at the thought. The hair on his arms stood on end. Stroud was going to start double-dosing on a large scale. He didn’t know how he knew. He didn’t know how Stroud was going to make it feasible in the long run. He just _knew_.

He also knew he needed to be prepared for that day. Prepared for what…

No. Too much at once. The thought slipped from his grasp, slippery like most of his more rational thoughts. The feeling didn’t leave him, but now he was at a loss as to what he was supposed to do about it. He had secrets in his head, the entire Pentagon and most of the department. Some secrets were benign and some were enough to topple governments. He just didn’t know what to _do_ with them.

Ella would know.

Eric sat at Helena’s desk and thought. His steady tick-tick a constant refrain. Inside, however, something had woken up.

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ELLA

Most Specialists had a speciality, if you’ll pardon the terrible pun. Django Whetū lived and breathed the storm, the wind whispered to him and lightning sang in his veins. Éoghan Beathan Kellagh-Ambrus burned with flames that weren’t just confined to his hair. So to say Eric Som had a gift with computers was to say that all Euan could do was light cigarettes, a fucking _understatement_.

Eric hadn’t had much need to do anything about his particular gift in years. He hadn’t really even remembered that he had a gift, except on an instinctual level. Computers helped ground him in a world that stopped making sense. Computers were a way to reassure him what was real and what wasn’t, even if he was never completely certain. Computers were logical and above all they were _quiet_. No random jumble of thoughts pressing in on his head and making his brain hurt.

Then Eric realised that Stroud was going to make more of him. He thought he’d known that once before, but he’d forgotten in the haze of everything. He realised and he knew, instantly, that shit was going to hit the proverbial fan.

His siblings. Stroud had never once suggested he wanted them after Eric blew up at the mere suggestion, but Eric was insane, not stupid. Once he started to put fragments together it started to paint a picture he didn’t like. Eric had gone along with Stroud for years because it hurt less that way. He’d only half believed his family was real and on the occasions he was certain, he was also certain that staying with Stroud protected them somehow. Now, he knew Stroud wanted them. He wanted more of Eric. He still couldn’t double-dose standard Specialists and retain anything useful beyond three weeks, but Eric had been double-dosed and was still there five years later (it had taken him a while to work out how long it had been, his brain hurt from the attempt and he still hated time).

So. Stroud was terrible, wanted more of Eric and while his siblings weren’t easy targets, by any means, they were at least accessible and numerous. Eric tried to count them off in his head, got three different answers, and gave up. He had a lot of siblings. And Ella. He wasn’t certain if Ella still counted after all these years. Did twins live on a separate level to other siblings? He couldn’t remember.

Not important. Diverting.

His siblings were in trouble. That was the point. And there was one thing Stroud hadn’t counted on, when he double-dosed Eric. Double-dosing made people insane, but they were a useful insane for up to a maximum of three weeks before they lost all ability to tell friend from foe. Eric was the exception, until Stroud got his hands on another child of a Specialist, he was insane but he still understood the difference between friend and foe. Stroud had been the former, mostly because Eric only half remembered why he’d agreed to work for Stroud in the first place. But now Stroud was a threat to his family and that placed him firmly on the _foe_ side of things.

Stroud was Eric’s enemy and Eric was a fucking _marvel_ with computers.

Tapping Stroud’s computer for things was easier than breathing. Going into department records to change things to protect his family was even easier. Some things Eric couldn’t change, trusting instinct rather than his own brain because his brain was suspect at best when it came to logic. The farmhouse stayed (too well known in certain circles, the Ranger whispered to Eric), Khodī̂’s position and home address stayed (too public, too noticeable if it disappeared), Rex’s DoD records (he’d be pissed if you fucked with them, the Ranger said from experience). The house he and Ella owned evaporated (they’d hidden it once, Eric would do it again. It could be found again, but it would take time). The names of most of their mothers mysteriously vanished. Xāwuṭh disappeared entirely. As far as the department now knew, Khodī̂ was Django’s eldest.

Half the changes Eric made, he didn’t even know what they were. He just knew that the thing that lived in his gut that told him when bad things were going to happen was satisfied. It wouldn’t stop the department fucking with his family, but it would slow them down just enough that they wouldn’t get caught like Eric had been.

Eric was there, listening, when Stroud ordered Kroger to call his brother at their father’s farmhouse to offer him a job. Not that he realised it at first, because he was in his own head at the time thinking in binary about dreams and nightmares and secrets. But then he _heard_ something so intensely familiar that it had his attention in seconds and he fixed his eye on Kroger. Kroger didn’t show it, but the attention unsettled him. Eric unsettled most people in the department, but Kroger was unfortunate enough to have been on the wrong end of one of Eric’s worst panic attacks. He hid it well, but he was terrified of living through that again. Between Eric’s eyes and Django Whetū on the other end of the phone, Eric was vaguely impressed that Kroger hadn’t wet himself yet.

Sometimes Eric was so confused he didn’t even know who ‘Eric’ was anymore. Those were terrible days and he hated them, because the only thing he fucking had anymore was ‘Eric’ even if ‘Eric’ was nothing more than Ella’s twin.

Sometimes he heard his Dad’s voice over the phone, despite noise-cancelling headphones, and got to intimidate assholes with just his eye and he felt more like himself than he had in years.

Django gave way to Rex, who proceeded to tell Kroger to piss off and go die in a fire and Eric cackled with laughter even if not a bit of it escaped his lips. He knew Kroger and Stroud could hear it anyway. Rex hung up on Kroger and he scowled in Eric’s direction, and then proceeded to back down immediately when Eric sneered at him in return. Yeah, thought so, fucker. Eric was scary when he was just a Ranger, now he could literally kill people with his brain.

“Wraith,” Stroud said and Eric ducked his head, standing down immediately. He knew an order when he heard one. Stroud studied him for a moment and then chanced something he hadn’t tried in a long, long time… for good reason.

“Tell me, Wraith. How would one go about recruiting Rex Tjin?” he asked and Eric proceeded to lose his shit. It was one thing to know Stroud was going after his siblings; it was another for Stroud to all but order Eric to help. If Stroud had hoped time had made Eric forget… well he wasn’t entirely wrong. He hadn’t even remembered Rex’s name until he’d overheard the conversation. But while Eric didn’t always remember them properly, he would always protect them.

Years with Stroud had taught the director what was necessary to keep Eric calm, and how to handle his displays of temper and panic attacks when he couldn’t prevent them from happening. He calmed Eric eventually, though not before Kroger got another dose of that terrible thing Eric did with his brain when he was pissed off. No great loss, though. Kroger would spend a couple of days having screaming nightmares, go to the doctors for pills, and then request an assignment a long way away from Eric. A long way from Eric meant _not trying to recruit his siblings_ which Eric considered a fair trade off.

“I promised not to coerce your siblings into joining,” Stroud told Eric once he was calm and locked in his room (cell) for the night. “That does not mean I won’t take advantage if they join me of their own free will,” Eric snarled with impotent fury. Years of experience and those early escape attempts assured that the room (cell) was designed to contain Eric, despite his abilities. He was psychic and could do shit with computers that should be impossible. He couldn’t pick locks from the wrong side or dig out through concrete walls without tools.

Eric stalked around and around in his cell, fingers tapping tick-tick against the wall.

That night was one of the worst he’d had in a long time. He dreamt of the farmhouse. He dreamt of the whine of rockets and the roar of an explosion. He dreamt of the ancient wood burning, crackling and popping under his feet as he walked through the ruination. A spectre witnessing the burning of the one safe place he’d kept for so long.

When he woke, he didn’t feel like anything had changed. He could still smell the fire; he could still feel the searing heat. He could still feel the utter despair of watching his childhood burn. That day he refused to leave his room for anything and no one, not even Stroud, dared to try and force him. Eric walked around and around in circle after circle, steps in pace with his fingers. Tick-tick.

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01000101010011000100110001000001

ELLA

It didn’t quite occur to Eric, in his attempts to keep his family safe, to find a way for _him_ to get out. He had a routine, a somewhat stable life and ways of coping with the overwhelming world without too many panic attacks. The thought of leaving literally didn’t occur to him. Stroud was his enemy, but Stroud was a constant almost as much as Ella was. Ella, his anchor, and Stroud his… something.

Weeks passed and Eric knew Stroud was gearing up for his coup. His chosen Specialists were already getting SAP cards and signing over their rights so that he could double-dose them and not get in any legal trouble. New recruits from other parts of the military were being read in on the department and what they’d agreed to in exchange for a significant pay rise. A large part of the department, however, remained oblivious. They would remain so until it was too late.

Eric was the reason for that.

Stroud didn’t want certain people to notice and so certain people didn’t notice. Eric didn’t even have to meet them at this point; he just put down a blanket of misdirection over the whole fucking building. The part of him that was trying to protect his family said this was wrong, that doing as Stroud ordered him was making it more difficult to protect his family. That Stroud had enough power. The rest of Eric had been following Stroud’s orders for long enough that he wasn’t sure he remembered how _not to_ follow Stroud’s orders.

Helena was one of those who wasn’t supposed to notice. Stroud wanted her son, Eric knew, and Helena would not stand for that. That did not mean that Helena missed everything. She knew Eric’s moods better than anyone, even Eric himself, and she knew that something was bothering him even if he couldn’t put it into words.

“Wraith,” she sat him down and knelt in front of him, holding his hands in hers. “I want you to know something. I want you to understand, alright?” she said and Eric frowned. Understanding was not Eric’s forte, usually. He was not required to _understand_ only to _do_. “You do not ever have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Helena said firmly. “There is a difference between being a subordinate and being a slave. A subordinate can say ‘no’. They can _leave_. They can report the person hurting them to someone and have it _count_. I don’t know what’s upsetting you. I don’t even know how much of what I say you can grasp. I _do_ know that you deserve better than to be that man’s pet,”

Eric flinched. He didn’t know why the wording hurt, a bolt straight to his heart. Helena was right in that he didn’t understand, but he knew what she was saying _mattered_.

“You can leave, Wraith, if you want to,” Helena said much more gently.

“Where do I go?” he asked, confused. Helena reached out and took a gentle hold of his lanyard and pulled out his picture of Ella.

“You find the ones who are waiting for you to come home,” she said pressing the picture into his hands. Eric looked at Ella for a long moment, thoughts whirling around his head.

It had never occurred to him that he could go and _see_ Ella. With his own eye, even. He wasn’t sure he remembered where she lived, but he could find her, right? The computers would tell him. Why had he never thought about going to see her before?

_It wasn’t safe_ , the Ranger in his head told him.

Well, was it safe now? Eric asked, because he liked the idea of going to see Ella.

_Not really, but unlike before you going to see them is unlikely to make things worse_ , the Ranger said wryly.

Was that a yes?

_Yes_ , the Ranger sighed but he didn’t sound annoyed, just sad. _You need to warn them about Stroud._

Right. Stroud wanted to double-dose his siblings make them like Eric and that was bad. It would hurt them. So Eric had to tell them. It was simple, when put like that and it was weird that Eric had never thought of it before. He looked at Helena, who seemed to be waiting for him to think it through, and smiled.

“Thank you,” he said because that was a rule his Dad had. Say please and thank you, even when you’re grumpy. Eric marvelled that he’d remembered that much.

“You’re welcome, dear,” Helena replied and kissed his forehead affectionately.

Of course, leaving was easier said than done. It wasn’t until Eric decided he wanted to leave that he realised how hard that would be. He wasn’t left alone at any point, except at night when he was locked in. Of course not being alone would hardly stop _Eric_ because his brain was a lethal weapon, but while he didn’t give a damn about Stroud or his Specialists he was suddenly hyperaware of all the people who _weren’t_ Stroud’s people. Eric was pretty sure that Ella wouldn’t like it if he hurt people to leave who didn’t deserve it. Eric was also pretty certain he was in no way qualified to decide who deserved it and who didn’t. He could hear everything everyone thought, but he didn’t understand them.

He asked the computers, because when things confused him he could usually find the answer on the computer. He clocked five ways to get out of the building that didn’t involve interacting with anyone except Stroud’s people. Then he tried to work out where to go from there and stalled.

Intellectually he knew there were things like buses and trains and cars, but he hadn’t been directly involved in his own transport to different places in five years and back then he’d been sane. He could find Ella, but he didn’t know how to get there, let alone how to get there without being followed. After hesitating for a while, Eric decided he would walk. Walking he could handle and didn’t require money that he didn’t have _and_ he knew he could make sure no one saw him unless he wanted them too, which he didn’t think he could do with a car or a bus. He wasn’t entirely sure where in DC he was, but the computer told him it took 53 hours walking to Lavelle. Eh, compared to walking most of the way from Iraq to Vietnam that’s nothing.

He couldn’t remember when he walked from Iraq to Vietnam but he was pretty sure that was an exaggeration. Not an exaggeration that was going to stop him, particularly, but it was a confusing thought. As if most of Eric’s thoughts didn’t confuse him more often than not.

So then it just remained a question of when. Something in his gut said _not yet_ and so he waited. It wouldn’t be long, he knew. Soon, he thought. Soon he would see Ella.

The thought stilled something in him. Patient and waiting, ready to take the chance. The thought drummed in his head. Ella, Ella, Ella. Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick.

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01000101010011000100110001000001

ELLA

Eric moved the day he met Jasper Fox for the first time. He looked in the man’s eyes and saw his own insanity reflected back at him and swallowed.

“I’m going to a meeting Wraith. You are not required to come,” Stroud informed him. “You will behave?”

“Yes,” Eric lied. It was late, usually he’d be taken back to his room by now but Stroud wasn’t ordering him and so Eric would not volunteer. The idea of breaking his routine made Eric feel a little sick, to be honest, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Stroud nodded and then he and Fox were gone. Eric waited until he felt them leave the building before going to get the things he’d left in Helena’s desk. A laptop he’d stolen, several little memory drives in case he forgot things like he sometimes did. When he got to Ella he had to make sure she knew everything and he didn’t trust his brain enough.

When he got to the desk he found a bag with several other things he hadn’t packed and a sticky note attached to the laptop in Helena’s handwriting.

_I hope you find your sister. Good luck._

A few water bottles. MREs he had vague memories of eating a long time ago. Some bandages. A knife. A passport with a name that was definitely not Eric in it, but with his face. A whole batch of Helena’s speculaas. Eric looked at the gifts and felt his eyes burn. He missed Helena already. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t.

He wanted to see Ella.

For a minute he was torn with indecision as he stared at the note and the gifts. His brain stalling out. He didn’t know he could do this.

_You’re insane_ , the Ranger said, _but you’re also an insanely powerful psychic with computer skills that border on freaky. You **can** do this. You **must** do this._

Okay. Okay. He could do this.

He could find Ella.

He had to.

He shouldered the bag, reached out with his mind until he could feel where everyone in the building was. Then he just walked out. Fingers tapped against his leg. Tick-tick.

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01000101010011000100110001000001

ELLA

Walking was harder than Eric remembered. He didn’t know why this surprised him, because he didn’t remember a lot, but it somehow did. Eric couldn’t quite reconcile what he had been – a Ranger trained to peak physical fitness – with what he had become – a man with a prosthetic leg who hadn’t had to do much by the way of physical activity outside of physical therapy in five years. Still the more he walked the more he got into the rhythm of it. Fifty three hours (not including stops to sleep) and he’d see Ella again. Three days, or thereabouts.

He could cope that long.

_Three days is not a good estimate for a fifty three hour walk_ , the Ranger said, resigned, but he was easy enough to ignore. _I’m not sure you should be heading for Levelle either._

Hmm.

He had known to wait for today, because Stroud was distracted by Jasper Fox. Eric could walk out and no one would even notice he was gone until tomorrow. If Stroud was double-dosing other Specialists without a breakthrough in their usefulness (not impossible, the Ranger said but Eric ignored him) then he had to feel confident in his power. If he was that confident… he might go after Eric’s siblings. Eric had done a lot to slow down the department, but it wouldn’t stop them.

But where do I find Ella if not Levelle? Eric wondered.

_Trust your instincts_ , the Ranger said, _you’ve always known how to find Ella when you needed to._ Well, okay then.

Philadelphia International it was.

_That **is** a three day walk if you push it_ , the Ranger observed, amused this time. Ha, Eric had known it was three days. Eric always knew. _Then you know to go right at this intersection, surely?_ The Ranger asked and Eric blinked, realised he was right and then scowled.

“Shut up,” he didn’t need directions from his own subconscious. He was a grown man, even if he was insane. He could find a fucking airport. The Ranger in his head laughed. Asshole.

Eric turned right.

**Author's Note:**

> Final note: as it stands this is a one-shot. A continuation might happen, but not until the rest of the series is out and I've read it, because I've just made a whole bunch of plot holes by not having Eric where he needs to be.


End file.
